1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of virtual queue management.
2. Description of the Related Art
Service companies such as local cable companies and governmental agencies offer various customer support services that can be accessed via a telephone network, such as the Public Switched Telecom Network (PSTN) and the Public Local Mobile Network (PLMN). In most cases, the clients in need for a service (also called herein the customer or end-user) can dial the phone number of the company's service line to talk to a service agent or operator. As service companies tend to maximize service provided to customers while minimizing cost, typically one service agent must respond to plural service requests from a plurality of clients. This situation creates service lines, or queues, where customers await for the next available service agent to respond their call. During this period, clients have to wait on the phone line, sometimes for a long time before they are served. Moreover, clients are provided no information about what is going on in the remote customer support center.
In a variant of the existing customer support services, a calling client can receive a busy signal or indication when the support service queue reaches its full capacity. The busy signal can be, for example, playing background music with advertisement, dynamically indicating the predicted waiting time, offering the client the option to receive a notification in a specified period, e.g. 30 minutes (however, the customer has no choice for selecting the time duration for the notification). In other words, customers have little choice, if any, to take a decision based upon the information they receive from the remote support center. Hence, in order to keep their priority most customers end up hooking with phone lines until they are served.
Other customer support service systems provide plural services, and calling customers, depending upon their needs, are selectively arranged in a queue for each one of the service provided by the system. For example, a calling customer A may desire to extend the validity of his driver's license, and when he calls the service telephone line of the governmental driver agency, he selects option 1 on his touch tone telephone, which signal is interpreted by a Dual Tone Multiple Frequency (DTMF) system in the customer support service system as corresponding to a first service queue. On the other hand, a customer B desires to obtain a new driver's license, and selects option 2 on his touch tone telephone when he calls the same service telephone line and is therefore assigned to a second, different queue. Each client is thus arranged in the proper queue based on the selected desired service. However, as new clients call in for similar services, the queues may increase indefinitely, thus creating, at best, decrease in the service quality provided by the serving agents as the waiting time increases, or at worst, an overflow of the telephone servicing system as the maximum number of queued customers is reached.
Although there is no prior art solution as the one proposed hereinafter for solving deficiencies or current customer client systems, the PCT patent application WO 2000/05867 A1 to Williams P. M. assigned to British Telecom (herein called Williams) bears some relation with the field of the present invention. In Williams, the queuing time for multiple customers whose calls are arranged in queue is calculated and then informed to each customer. The customer connection is released in response to a signal from the customer. The connection is re-established if the queuing time of a particular customer is less than a threshold value. The queuing time is announced to a customer upon request, and all incoming calls in queue are compared to a data identifying the origin of the call. If multiple calls are detected to be from the same source, the call scheduled for reconnection is merged with other duplicate calls.
Williams fails to address the issue of simultaneously managing multiple virtual queues, and is silent on any method for optimizing the service response time of such multiple virtual queues.
In the PCT patent application WO 1993/04447 to Caine L. S., assigned to Delphi Displays Ltd (herein called Caine), there is taught a queue management system including a system controller, ticket dispensing machines with display monitors, an assistant or operator control panel and information displays for both assistant and customer information. All the elements of the system are linked to the controller. The displays are located at strategic intervals around a store, as are the ticket dispensing machines. The ticket dispenser monitors provide the customers with an indication of the expected waiting time. As tickets are taken from the dispensers the controller increments the number to be printed on the next ticket. Assistants are provided with a button to press when ready to serve the next customer causing this information to be relayed to the information displays.
Caine also fails to address the issue of simultaneously managing multiple virtual queues and stops short of proposing any method for optimizing the service time of such multiple virtual queues.
In the EP patent application number 0 419 285 to McGuire et al. assigned to Radford of Bristol Ltd (herein called McGuire), a customer queue management system is disclosed wherein the various components are connected via transmitter/receiver links. The occurrence of each new arrival is recorded, possibly with the issue of a ticket. One or more displays indicate a number relating to the customer being served. A delay mechanism prevents the number being incremented too quickly. Remote control units increment the displayed number as queue members are serviced. A master control unit provides additional control, including immediate display advance and reset.
None of the above-described systems involves more than one single service queue and therefore, each described system is limited to providing information to queued customers about their relative position in the unique queue. Conclusively, the prior art is silent on a system and method for optimizing the processing time of a virtual queuing system that involves a plurality of queues.
Accordingly, it should be readily appreciated that it would be advantageous to have a method and system for effectively managing and for optimizing the processing time of a system with a plurality of queues. The present invention provides such a method and system.